


Heartbeat

by brasspetal



Series: The Nameless Quiet [6]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Guilt, Kissing, M/M, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-14 02:36:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11198673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brasspetal/pseuds/brasspetal
Summary: It felt like something formidable had finally found them after all this hiding.





	Heartbeat

**Author's Note:**

> This can be read separately like the rest but if you want a bigger picture, I'd suggest starting from the beginning. Thank you for reading!

It felt like something formidable had finally found them after all this hiding.

They never made it back to Alexandria.

The storm came upon them like a nightmare. It brought torrential rain and wind gusts that almost ripped straight through the Earth. Daryl grabbed Rick’s shoulder, pulling him out of the way of a falling dead tree. The branches crack and lightning flashes, blinding them both. They’re scrambling in the mud, gripping onto one another and running, blind, through the thick vines. Daryl felt as if he could drown in it all but that hand at his back is enough to keep his focus.

They find a small shack filled with wet hay. It’s shaking in the wind and they bust inside. The door slams shut of its own accord by the violence of a gust and they secure it with a wooden board. The storm is too angry for them to hear their shared breathing.

They were both soaked through and Daryl leans against the wall of the shack that’s barely holding together. He slides down the wood and sits on the ground, legs outstretched. Rick stands dripping wet in the center of the shack, as if he’s preparing to stop the roof from caving in.

“There ain’t nothin’ we can do!” Daryl yells over the wind. They’d have to ride it out.

Daryl half-expected Rick to join him. They’d sit side by side and listen to the shack crack apart but he doesn’t. Rick remains standing there, guarding the door. Daryl wasn’t going to ask him to join. He doesn’t ask anyone for _anything._ He wasn’t about to start now.

It grows darker inside and Daryl watches Rick’s still form become a silhouette. The wind is roaring and the lightning snaps close by.

Daryl talks softly to Rick’s silhouette. Rick can’t hear him; the storm is too loud but he preferred it that way.

“I miss gettin’ lost in the dark with you.”

The thundering rumble scatters his words as he hoped it would. He timed them appropriately like gunshots.

There’s a crack and a flash. He says, “You breathin’ beside me is all I need. Everythin’ else can go to hell.”

Rick’s silhouette moves but he doesn’t turn to look at Daryl. He’d never admit to it but Daryl commits the image to memory. Rick, standing in that storm-light as if he dreamt him up somehow.

He had wondered for years when it would be their turn but he realizes that it’s now. This is their turn. These moments, however fleeting, is their turn. _The now._

Thunder rumbles and splits the sky in two. “I ain’t gonna do this without you neither. I never could.”

Even though Rick couldn’t hear a single word, he still hopes they somehow absorb into his skull; carried across the room by a promise.  

Rick turns to him then and Daryl closes his eyes. He listens to his footfalls, crunching across the old hay and feels his shoulder brush against his when Rick finally sits down beside him.

“Wouldn’t that’d been somethin’?” Rick asks and Daryl turns his head against the wooden shaky wall to catch his eyes. Rick has a small smile on his face. “To be ripped apart after everythin’ by a storm.”

Daryl feels a smile pull at his lips as an answer.

For the first time in a long while, Rick looked unburdened. Free. He’s soaked through, covered in mud but he felt what Daryl felt. The storm had let time pause, it had given them reprieve, instead of sending them on their final voyage into the Earth.  

“Do you think we’re meant to be here?” Rick asks him and he has an openness to his eyes that should terrify Daryl but it doesn’t.

“We ain’t meant to be anywhere.”

Rain pounds the roof but the winds weren’t raging like they were before. The rhythmic tapping lulls Daryl into a comforting quiet. The rain swirls sideways through the cracks in the wood and the shack creaks with it.

They are still sitting side by side with their heads turned towards one another.  Daryl knows Rick wants to kiss him. He can tell. The feeling is infectious; making Daryl feel like a goddamn teenager. Daryl taps his shoe against Rick’s absently, barely realizing he’s doing it. The shack smells musty, like it crawled up from deep in the dirt. They had unearthed a corner of the old world. Not a pretty one or even one of note but it’s here, like they are. Standing against the storm. Without it, they probably would have drowned in the mud.

Rick opens his mouth to speak and just sits there, studying Daryl’s face, as if it’s worthy of being studied.

“I want to stay a little longer, is that all right?” Rick asks.

“See me arguin’?”  Daryl shrugs.

Rick slides across the small space and rests his forehead against Daryl’s. There’s a disjointed shakiness to his movements. He reaches up and sets his hand on Daryl’s face. They are breathing in the same air. Daryl can feel the pads of Rick’s callused fingers against his ear.

There’s home to be found here.

It didn’t matter who they were to the world or who they had been. There are few moments which bind them and even fewer moments of worthy reflection. Daryl has always been good at recognizing the worthiness in the serine.

“I’m sorry.” Rick quietly says and Daryl didn’t think it was meant for him. The world never deserved Rick’s guilt and Daryl would scream it to the clouds, to the rain, if he could.

“This world doesn’t deserve it. It never will.” Daryl replies.

Rick is always searching for that atonement and if Daryl can help him see that he never needed it in the first place, then that’s more than enough.

Daryl doesn’t wait any longer, he closes the small space between them and he presses his mouth to Rick’s. They grip onto one another like the world is tumbling into that final divide. He’s warm, real, alive and a heartbeat of everything.


End file.
